


RETROGRADE.

by GooseAndGold



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1980s AU, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Strategic Scientific Reserve, cold war au, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 09:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6849169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooseAndGold/pseuds/GooseAndGold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It's 1987, and the tension of the Cold War is finally beginning to wane. Howard Stark, for all that he is the head of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, has played little part in the politics--he is in the Canadian arctic, helping retrieve what the government had thought was a Soviet submarine. </em><br/> <br/><em>...a canon-divergent AU in which Steve Rogers is revived two decades early--just in time to witness a Soviet operative committing a series of assassinations that will change the nature of the Cold War.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	RETROGRADE.

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Two degrees to the left,” Howard mumbles to one of his engineers. The laser is adjusted accordingly, and the ice groans and whines as the beam slices cleanly through it. “Careful,” he says, still muttering. If they were to work too quickly or cut the wrong angle, the block of ice could be dropped into the chamber below. It's something he wouldn't risk. Not with what he thinks is buried there.

 

There is a hiss as the air below—heated and expanded—was pushed through the cut, and the ice was forced loose. Howard finds himself paralyzed, unable to direct the SHIELD engineers in digging steel hooks into the ice block and hauling it free. Contrary to the plan, Stark takes up one of the harnesses meant to lower agents into the cavern, and secures it around his own waist. There are no protests as he motions to be lowered into the hole.

 

He's aiming his flashlight at the far reaches of the cockpit before his boots reached the floor. The target is not immediately apparent; everything has become coated in a layer of reflective ice and frost that casts the interior in a soft, still blue. It is the shield he spots first. From there, the man.

 

“Hansen, Fujioka,” he calls back up to the surface. “Get Peggy Carter on the phone. She'll want to hear about this.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Steve wakes, he's sore. He coughs long enough that he nearly forgets it isn't his asthma at fault. Eyes watering from the effort, he looks around the small, plain room he was apparently sleeping in. The bed is made under him, but he can't remember laying down to rest. A breeze carries in the sounds of the city and eases some of the warm stuffiness of a summer afternoon in Brooklyn. But the wind smells like...nothing. No warm pavement, no car exhaust, no garbage, no cooked meals. If anything, it smells like dust and metal. And when did he get back to America?

 

Something's wrong. He listens to the radio that's next to the bed, turned down low and catching the broadcast of a ballgame. He hears the announcer describing a pitch by a player who had to retire two years ago due to injury. The batter is a man drafted to fight on the Western front.

 

The doorknob turns with a click on the opposite side of the room, and a woman in and SSR uniform enters.

 

“Good morning, Captain Rogers” she greets him in a pleasant and generic accent. Her tie is wrong for the issued uniform. Her hair hangs loose—too unprofessional for the Reserve.

 

“Where am I,” he demands.

 

“You're in New York City, Captain,” she replies.

 

Steve is certain he's not. He recognizes the game playing on the radio now—he saw it four years ago with Bucky, back before America entered the War. He tells the woman as much, slowly rising from the corner of the bed.

 

She looks nervous, steps back, holds up a hand to...what, calm him?

 

“Excuse me,” he says, moving past her and out the door. What should be a hallway is a facade. One side is wallpapered in the same plain beige, but the other is just bare plywood and beams. The hall doesn't lead to more rooms—it ends abruptly and opens into an industrial space that looks like a hangar or warehouse.

 

The woman follows him out of the room, reaching for his shoulder to draw him away or get his attention. “Captain Rogers, please,” she begins. He shrugs away from her touch.

 

“ _Where am I_ ,” Steve says again, slowly. He hopes she can tell from his tone how poorly he would take a lie.

 

“You _are_ in New York. You just...we thought it would be a shock. We wanted you to be comfortable when you woke,” she tells him.

 

He doesn't wait to ask her who “we” refers to; he heads down the fake hallway and emerges into the hangar to find armed men in black, an unfamiliar emblem on their shoulders, shouting hastily at him to stay calm and stay still. Steve walks past them and meets no resistance, even as the woman's voice is now being broadcast ambiently into the room and the sound of a dozen pair of boots echoes through this new space.

 

Steve picks up speed until he's running at a sprint, pushing past men and even women in suits, through a corridor of metal and glass and electronics straight out of science fiction. He heads down and out, down and out, until he's rushed through a door marked “fire exit” and stumbles out onto the street.

 

He is not in Brooklyn, but some part of his brain insists to him that despite the taller skyline, the absurd vehicles, the unfamiliar clothing...he's in Manhattan. He sees the Empire State Building and he knows this is somehow home.

 

* * *

 

The briefing is…startling. He is angry and uncomfortable, though his reaction is eased somewhat when he learns that Howard is the one who found him. He relaxes further still when he learns that he has a chance to see Peggy again.

 

She arrives within hours, coming in from Washington DC. He sees the ring on her finger and realizes they may never find time for that dance.

 

“Peg, Howard, please…” Steve says, cutting in fondly to the conversation that has been raging since both his old friends arrived. They’ve been arguing with various doctors and military officers—advocating for him, he recognizes—about his need to rest and adjust. He appreciates the care, but he’s not sure if he would enjoy so much leisure time. For him, after all, only a few hours have passed. “With all due respect, I spent most of my life being useless. I’d like to get back to work as soon as I can.”

 

They tell him they’ll arrange for it, eventually. He takes the promise at face value and spends a bit of time catching up, and a bit of time sight-seeing—which is what Howard calls it, but truly it’s Steve getting his bearings in the new-but-familiar city.

 

They visit Howard’s home in the Hamptons, since Peggy mostly lives in Washington, D.C. and Steve and Bucky’s old apartment has been turned into a museum he hasn’t summoned the heart to visit yet.

 

Steve is unsure how to act around Howard Stark. Peggy is still very much the same woman she has always been—sharp, stable, capable, but not at all unkind. Howard, though, is different in a way Steve can’t place. He seems happy, though less energetic and showy. Steve gets the impression that he simply grew up at some point. Steve thinks some of his arrogance is missing; maybe he’s simply started feeling the weight of the world after all these decades, or maybe it was all an act back then.

 

Steve is equally unsure what to make of Tony Stark. The young man is nearly seventeen years old, and he has all the confidence and bluster that his father did during the war. The young Stark is also a genius of engineering in his own right, with an awkward appearance that may one day be handsome. However, these are not the things that surprise Steve about Tony.

 

“ _You_ have a _son_ ,” Steve repeats.

 

“Come now, Steve,” Peggy says, her careful enunciation making it clear that she’s trying not to giggle. “Surely that’s not so surprising.”

 

“He’s probably surprised I’ve got a kid who wasn’t conceived out of wedlock,” Howard snorts, shuffling the papers on his desk.

 

Steve coughs, resisting the urge to grin, because that would be taken as agreement. Which would be rude. “No, I’m just…you were still my age a few months ago, as far as I’m concerned,” he explains.

 

“I’m _still_ your age. I’ve just matured like a fine wine.”

 

That’s the Howard that Steve remembers. Sarcastic, charming, and terrifyingly smart. They say a soldier without a war has no purpose, but Steve wants _more_ of this—two of his dearest friends in the world, who he saw in their prime just a few months ago. It’s almost a complete set. But despite all the time that’s passed, none of them have retired yet. They do still have work to do.

 

Sometimes Steve is consulted. Sometimes he’s not. Howard has taken it upon himself to rent him an apartment—despite Steve’s substantial military back-pay—but more often than not, he’s visiting the Stark household and learning everything he can about the current political situation with the USSR and the conflicts across the world stage.

 

Today, Howard is on a call with one of the executives of his company. Peggy was needed in Manhattan, and so Steve is watching the news on the television, learning just as much about the New York and America of the future as he is about current affairs.

 

Steve hears doors open and close in the kitchen, and he assumes Tony has emerged from the massive garages attached to the house to look for food. The freezer opens and closes, the microwave opens and closes, and five minutes later there’s a soft beep. Steve hears the young man walk over to the living room and lean heavily against the door frame behind him.

 

“What’cha watching?” Tony asks, stirring the food on his tray into a homogenous mess.

 

“The ‘Baby M’ case. They’re announcing their decision soon, apparently.”

 

“Hmm,” Tony replies simply. He doesn’t seem interested in the slightest.

 

The sound of the news broadcast stretches through the silence, but Steve is having trouble focusing on it. “What are you eating?” He asks finally. He’s had trouble holding a conversation with Howard’s son the few times he tried, but he does want the young man to like him.

 

“TV dinner. Meatloaf. It’s as gross as you’d expect,” Tony sighs, dropping the plastic fork in the tray with a sigh. Steve watches as he walks back into the kitchen and pushes the pedal on the garbage can.

 

“Hey, I’ll eat the rest of that,” Steve calls. The sight of someone throwing away that much food rubs him the wrong way, even if it does seem about as appetizing as rations.

 

“What, the TV dinner?”

 

“Yeah,” Steve says, holding out a hand, “I’ll finish it for you.”

 

“Gross, no, just make your own.”

 

“I can finish yours. It’s less wasteful. If you’d grown up during a war, you’d understand.”

 

“We’ve been in the middle of a war since the fifties, gramps.”

 

“If you’d grown up _poor_ , then. Just give me your dinner thing.”

 

“I did grow up poor. Completely morally destitute,” Tony tells him. When Steve doesn’t reply, the young man rolls his eyes, but makes his way back to the living room, and holds the microwave dinner out with one hand. “Bon appetite,” he says dryly.

 

Steve revises his earlier thought. Tony is much worse than Howard was in his time. It’s unfortunate, then, that the young man is home for a two-week break before his summer semester resumes. Steve learns constantly how smart Tony is, and how willing he is to let that intelligence go to waste. Howard was always…eccentric…but his son delights in being contrary, sarcastic, and unproductive.

 

Actually, when he compares the man to his son, Steve realizes how much Howard has changed. He hadn’t seen the man for a few months before his last mission. He can see, obviously, that time has passed. The world has changed. There are color televisions, and video games, and synth pop. There are fashion subcultures he can’t begin to understand, and Thatcherism, and Reaganomics. There are cellular phones, which Howard used to say would be popular, and Steve is waiting for the day he’ll remember this and start tormenting Steve about how right he was. The future looks very much like…the future. He’s honestly surprised that flying cars don’t seem to be commonplace.

 

Howard looks different too, of course. He’s older. Greyer. He has a wife near his age, and a child near Steve’s. Peggy, too, looks different. The two times he’s seen Gabe Jones again, the man had clearly aged as well. Time has passed, but it passed without him, so sometimes it just feels like a trick. It’s like his super-soldier transformation—as if they were zapped with vita rays and came out looking older, but no time really passed. But that’s not true. He’s disoriented when he tries to think about it, but forty years have passed. He’s the only thing that hasn’t changed.

 

So he really can put it all into perspective, when he compares Tony to Howard, because he can see a little bit of his friend in the young man. He can see the disdain for anything serious. The arrogance. The flirtation. The Howard of today is definitely more grave, but his smile is still the same. He still seems to have his own magnetism. A kind of charm and energy that hasn’t blunted at all. Steve is so glad he hasn’t lost it.

 

Peggy, too, is the same and yet different. He’s grateful—truly grateful—that he was able to see her again. He can tell she is too. But he can also tell that she moved on. No one ever expected to see Steve Rogers again, and he doesn’t bear even the tiniest grudge. She has a family now. No kids of her own; Steve realizes he could never really imagine her as a mother. But she does have a sister-in-law through Gabe, and two brothers of her own that come with wives and kids themselves. A proper family, people she probably has framed pictures of in her DC home. And her smile is still the same, and her sharp wit, and her obvious courage. In fact, when Steve reflects on it, he realizes that the world seems to have changed to suit her.

 

He can muse on it all he wants, but at the end of the day, he really is just glad that he got these people back at all. Plenty of his friends are long-dead. The restaurants he used to scrounge to afford a meal at have been replaced with clothing or record stores. Streets have been renamed. The world has moved on. He’s thankful for what he can get. He’s thankful for the chance to keep moving forward.

 

And, eventually, he gets the offer to go to work.

 

The job is partially symbolic, but it’s also real protection of the current President of the United States, who is meeting with the General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Given everything Steve has read of the Cold War and its causes, Steve is wary and on high alert. However, he’s also been assured that discussions between the two nations have been trending toward peace.

 

The public reaction is almost overwhelming. Steve has wondered what has been said about him in the last forty years while he’s been frozen in the arctic. He’s wondered if the SSR was the only group who even remembered him. It seems that the whole world knows Captain America, and if anything, his appearance is making more of an impression than even the president expected.

 

Politicians and distinguished guests—American, Soviet, or otherwise—crane their necks just as much as the crowds outside the property had. Steve had a few years during the war, after he started seeing active duty and making headlines, where he got the chance to adjust to gaping faces. Still, this is beyond his expectations.

 

There are a select few who treat him like an AUS service member rather than a celebrity or a ghost. The President and Vice President—men from his era, if not from his neck of the woods—are two such people.  Ronald Reagan is a warm, intelligent, interesting man. As he speaks with the President, Steve realizes that he starred in several films during the war, and was a major name in Hollywood when Steve was shipping out. In the captain’s memory, it’s only been a few years since he saw a young Reagan on posters for _King’s Row_ in the cinema in their neighborhood. Steve also learns that a strong economy and an enormous military, largely thanks to the man he is guarding, appear to be the keys to stopping the spread of communism—an obsession of the modern age.

 

Ronald Reagan is also a man of black and white divisions. The man is at war with communism and with drug use. In the newspapers, he speaks in passing of a disease being called the “gay plague” in New York and other American cities, and Steve wants to vomit. He reads about South Africa, and learns of the President’s opposition to an Act that would pressure the nation into ending apartheid. The world is as difficult as it’s always been.

 

Steve is busy observing the President as he meets with the Soviet Union’s General Secretary, a man named Gorbachev, who has a friendly smile and tense shoulders. Steve has read about his country and his politics, though he has no idea what is truth and what is wartime fiction. He supposes he doesn’t need to know. Peggy has told Steve that he’s only there to smile and wave—a symbol of the endurance of American culture. Steve wanted to be in a situation where he can be put to use, but even he has to admit that this meeting might be a valuable way for him to ease back into active duty forty years into the future. President Reagan himself said that there would be no real danger—he has assured Steve that the Soviets will have done the math and determined that peace is in their best interest. With a symbol like Captain America back in the public eye, it should be even more of a forgone conclusion.

 

It is only a few minutes into their meeting when the shot is fired. General Secretary Gorbachev had leaned forward for only a second, stretching for a glass of water, when the roar of a single shot erupts, shattering the near-silence. The round pierces the wall behind the spot where Gorbachev’s head had been a moment before, and the man dives to the ground.

 

There is no second shot, but the assembled crowd is in an instant panic. The would-be assassin runs, and Steve pursues, barely taking the time to confirm into his radio that he has eyes on the target. The man is fast—too fast. Something is clearly wrong. Steve can manage around 35 miles an hour for a sustained sprint, and he’s barely gaining any distance on the shooter. They tear through the hallways and meeting rooms in the western wing of the building, exploding through an exit and taking off across the North Lawn in the dwindling daylight.

 

Captain America’s shield, as always, is strapped to Steve’s back, and he whips it forward at the first opportunity. The disc cuts through the air, humming faintly as it moves straight toward its target. At the last second the man spins, bracing and lifting his arm to guard his face. Many people’s first reaction to the shield is to protect themselves, and the usual result is that the weapon cuts through the bone of their forearm and dents their skulls. Instead, Steve has to adjust when the shield is sent ricocheting back toward him, easily deflected by the shooter, who takes off at full tilt toward 17th Street.

 

Steve tries to redouble his efforts, giving it everything he’s got. He puts his head down and runs. He hears sirens somewhere close, but doesn’t see the lights. He’s still very much on his own when they hit 17th and the shooter veers onto Pennsylvania Avenue, cutting straight through six lanes of early evening traffic. Steve makes it there fast, a small but significant nine-second gap between them. His lungs are burning, his legs are burning, and around him tires screech as people swerve to avoid the two men racing down the middle of the avenue.

 

It is abrupt—as Steve uses his free hand to push himself away from a van that noticed him a few moments late, he looks away from the shooter. When he looks back, the man has vanished completed. Steve spins around, trying to determine the most likely escape route, but there are too many—alleys, underground parking garages, store fronts…there’s no obvious lead. The sound of the police sirens follows him, and soon the nearby buildings are lit up by flickering blue-and-red, but even as officers spill out of their cars and into the avenue, Steve knows the target is gone.

 

* * *

 

 

“Who was in charge of security for guests?” Steve demands.

 

“Three men, all veteran staff of the Federal Government. Lansing, Scott, and Smith. They’ve disappeared,” responds one of the Agents, a man named Pierce who has blue eyes and the bearing of a movie star.

 

“And the men who hired them?” Howard taps impatiently at the wood of his desk.

 

“They’ve also disappeared,” Pierce replies evenly, seeming unaffected by the icy tone being used by the Director and co-founder of SHIELD.

 

Howard hisses. Peggy casts him a look that Steve can’t quite decipher. After a quiet moment, Steve clears his throat and presses on. “The fact that an American was in immediate pursuit may soften the blow, diplomacy-wise,” he says optimistically.

 

“Especially when that American was Captain America himself,” Howard adds with a nod.

 

“Given how quickly Captain America lost track of his target, though, it makes the whole thing seem staged,” Peggy interjects.

 

Steve turns to regard his old friend. She gives him an apologetic smile. “We trust you, Steve, of course. That’s not the least bit in question for us. But we need to be practical about what any Soviet warmongers will say.”

 

“We need to be worrying about American warmongers, too,” Agent Pierce adds. “This attack was not on President Reagan. The _Soviet Secretary General_ was attacked in the White House. Anyone who can read the newspaper knows what tonight was supposed to be about.”

 

Peggy nods. “Quite right. There was a genuine chance of progress tonight. Certainly the tone of the meeting was hopeful. Reconciliatory. We need to consider what this particular display of anger tells us—that the shooter wants the United States to go to war.”

 

Howard sighs. “An American shooter is going to be harder to find than a Soviet shooter.”

 

“He will,” Steve agrees. “but we have leads. I wasn’t able to catch him because he was enhanced.”

 

“Enhanced?” Pierce asks from across the table.

 

“You believe he was a super-soldier,” Howard infers.

 

Steve nods once, grave. “I do. He was as fast as I was, and well-trained besides. Clearly not a civilian.”

 

“Police and FBI can’t be used to track him, then. It will have to be the SSR,” Howard muses. “And we can’t exactly put his face on the side of milk cartons either. Too dangerous for the public to approach.”

 

Steve frowns. “Sorry…milk cartons?”

 

“Tell you later, love,” Howard dismisses with a wave of his hand. “The point is, this is going to be a job for us. President Reagan will want to be kept abreast, of course,” he adds with a sigh.

 

“As will the Secretary General,” Peggy points out. “If we’re to try to dissuade them from starting a proper war, they’ll both need to be satisfied by the investigation.”

 

“I’ll do everything I can to see that it’s handled,” Steve swears.

 

Agent Pierce scoffs. “Do you have any experience with intelligence operations?”

 

Steve frowns, leaning forward and folding his hands on the desk. “As a matter of fact, I do,” he tells the man bluntly.

 

“Still,” Peggy interjects, and Steve is annoyed to recognize her pacifying tone of voice, “this is something the agents of the SSR are trained for. The President will likely want you to be a more public face. Or a personal guard. Let us handle this, Steve. If we get a lead, then it will be your area of expertise.”

 

She’s right, of course. He completed nearly a dozen intelligence operations with the Howling Commandos during the War, but that had never been the purpose of Captain America. It was never something he excelled at. But this is of incredible importance—he understands as well as everyone else assembled here that in the age of nuclear weapons, an attack like this put the world at stake. Whoever had jeopardized that…he is more than willing to pledge his life in order to see them fail.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Got all that exposition out of the way. That's nice.
> 
> As you can tell, this AU changes the timeline for both the MCU and for true 1980s history. Everything that diverges from either 'canon' (is real life a 'canon'?) happens because of Captain America reappearing. This fic will not be a good history lesson, hahaha.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading the first chapter! Please stick around, I do plan to write quite a lot for this story.


End file.
